2010.09.23 - Issues with Jane Velez Mitchell
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1009/23/ijvm.01.html
George Anthony loses his cool, big-time. Did he threaten his daughter Casey with physical violence?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tonight -- shocking claims by volunteers who helped search for little Caylee in the months after she vanished. Did Caylee`s grand dad George get so boiling mad at Casey that he physically grabbed her?
New explosive audio interviews between searchers and cops portray a very frustrated grandfather, pushed right to the edge, maybe over the edge. Listen to this.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: George had went in there grabbed a-hold of her and they had it out. And he said that, the answer to where that baby is, is in that bedroom and the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) won`t talk.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: So, if that`s true, what is the significance of a physical altercation between George and his daughter Casey over Caylee`s disappearance? In that very same batch of interviews, another volunteer claims George said he almost had Casey convinced to put an x on a map to show where Caylee`s body was located.
Meantime, listen to what Tim Miller, director of Texas Equusearch said about what he observed.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
TIM MILLER, DIRECTOR, TEXAS EQUUSEARCH: Out of the four-day period of time being in that house, Casey Anthony never said the word Caylee one time.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tim Miller also claimed that after all the drama calmed down, he asked the Anthony family where to search but said Cindy got so angry she banned his team, the Texas Equusearch team, from her home.
And there`s yet another disturbing development. Court documents reveal that Casey`s ex-boyfriend was trying to sell these adorable yet chilling photos of little Caylee to a major American tabloid.
Is the evidence against Casey overwhelming, or is it all pretty much circumstantial? What do you think? Give me a holler, 1-877-JVM-SAYS.
Straight out to my fantastic expert panel, Mark Eiglarsh, how might the prosecution exploit this alleged physical battle between George and his daughter who is now accused of murder?
MARK EIGLARSH, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, if they`re smart they stay away from it. I don`t think it means anything. And I don`t know that the judge is going to let it in, and I think that every piece of evidence that you put in you are taking time away from the focus the jurors have on other pieces of evidence, like her not reporting her child missing for so long, like the scientific evidence.
When you`re putting in this evidence, you`re desperate, it`s D-list, it`s like the Kato Kaelin of evidence. It`s like -- so the father thinks that she might know? It`s just not solid. It`s not good. I don`t know that it`s even going to come in.
I understand it`s gossipy, but we didn`t invent it. This came down in the document dump. And so much of the evidence is like this, Rozzie Franco. I mean for every hard piece of forensic evidence there`s got to be a million anecdotes about what George and Cindy and Casey and Lee did. And is it going to muddy up the trial? What do you think, Rozz?
ROZZIE FRANCO, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Absolutely. I mean everyone`s been trying to solve this mystery. Everyone`s had some sort of piece of the puzzle that they feel like they can fix in there to actually solve this.
We knew about Cindy`s anger. We knew about George`s anger. This sort of solidifies the fact what they believed in the beginning, that she obviously is the one that knows what happened.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Even though they backtrack on that and have been insisting ever since that their daughter is 100 percent innocent. Of course, there`s the story of Zenaida, the baby-sitter that prosecutors say is fictional, taking the child.
But Beth Karas, I`ve got to ask you, why would all of this stuff be in a document dump, a lot of stuff like it, if it`s never going to get in, according to Mark Eiglarsh?
BETH KARAS, CORRESPONDENT, "IN SESSION": Oh, because discovery will include lots of things that may not be admissible. These are -- just the things the police have been collecting and statements they`ve been taking.
Now, you just mentioned how the parents have flip-flopped in their attitudes. That is an issue that could possibly be relevant at the trial. If George Anthony, for some reason, is on the stand and says he never believed his daughter had anything to do with this, he will be confronted with his statements to the police close in time to Caylee being reported missing and the car discovered because he went to the police station and he said, "Don`t tell my wife. She doesn`t know I`m here. I think my daughter knows something more. You know that odor. I`ve smelled that odor. I`ve been a police officer."
He`s talking about the odor of decomposition in the car. He was suspicious of his daughter for months but may not be saying that today.
EIGLARSH: I agree with that. That would be the only way I see it coming in, Jane. On cross-examination when George tries to help the defense case by advancing some point, then somehow magically says and I`ve always believed in her innocence, boom, that`s when it will come in. I don`t see the prosecution when they`re laying out their case in opening statement or throughout their case in chief saying, now, a significant point is that George at one point actually said that she knew the key to blah, blah, blah. I just don`t see it. That`s weak evidence. He wouldn`t do it.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Ann, Michigan. Your question or thought.
AMY, MICHIGAN (via telephone): Hi, Jane. Absolutely love your show. Watch you every night.
My question is, when is this going to court?
VELEZ-MITCHELL: It`s supposed to be going in to court in May. Good luck with that. They keep pushing it back and back and back. Come on, Rozzie, do you think it`s actually going to start in May? We are going to start making plans to go down there?
FRANCO: Yes, absolutely. I mean I think we`re starting to see the process speed up a little bit here. I mean, obviously we`ve gotten the witness list by the defense. We see the defense deposing at this point. I think it very well could happen in May.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Well, we`re all going to be down there in Orlando hearing all this evidence. It`s going to be a drama probably right up there with the Michael Jackson trial, which I was also at which was pretty astounding.
My big issue, cracking Casey; her own father allegedly became so enraged at her lack of cooperation he physically grabbed her. Listen to this.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He said, well, he knows that the answer`s in the bedroom, and he pointed to Casey`s bedroom.
And his were, "But the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) won`t talk."
(END AUDIO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Casey reminds me a whole lot of Misty Croslin. I mean the only time we know of Casey cracking is when she was behind bars and reportedly freaked out when she heard human remains had been discovered near her parents house found; remains that would later be identified as her daughter Caylee.
Remember Misty -- suspicion has swirled around her for God only knows how long, and she finally came up with this claim that Haleigh was snatched and stuffed in a bag and thrown in the river.
Both women deny involvement in the crime.
Beth Karas, can you see a situation where Jose Baez would put Casey on the stand?
KARAS: I don`t think that he would put her on the stand, and she was caught in so many lies that they have to deal with, they certainly don`t need her on the stand being cross-examined about these lies, especially why she never reported her daughter missing for 30 days. But --
EIGLARSH: No chance. Yes.
KARAS: If -- let`s just say hypothetically Casey has admitted some complicity in this, he could not -- Jose Baez could not put her on the stand legally, ethically, to say she had nothing to do with it. I`m not saying that she ever did say anything.
She has toed the same line all along as far as we know. She has always proclaimed her innocence and always blamed the nanny for this.
FRANCO: Casey will go to her grave saying that Zanny the nanny took her daughter. She will never admit any complicity in this case.
EIGLARSH: Right. And by the way --
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, I`ve also heard -- let me ask you this Mark -- I`ve also heard that the defense is going to try to back away from the Zanny the nanny claim because there`s no evidence that Zanny the nanny exists. The prosecution is convinced that that is completely fictional, there is no Zanny the nanny. And they believe they have a lot of evidence to prove that.
How would the defense backpedal on that and present a new theory?
EIGLARSH: Well, in each and every case generically the defense always has reasonable doubt, that somehow the state just didn`t prove the case. We still don`t know exactly how the child was killed. We don`t know a lot about the case. And so they may just go with reasonable doubt.
You did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt, yes, her actions were bizarre in certain instances, yes there are excuses, but they don`t have proof beyond a reasonable doubt. For sure that`s what they`re going to go with and maybe something else.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, you hear them blaming, pointing the finger at Roy Kronk, pointing the finger at this one, at that one. If they`re going to blame Zanny the nanny, they can`t blame somebody else, too, unless they`re going to create a conspiracy theory where Zanny is somehow involved with Roy Kronk. It gets a little ridiculous at a certain point, Rozzie?
FRANCO: It is ridiculous. But in all seriousness, the state cannot prove that the body wasn`t moved. The defense does have that, but who moved the body, that`s the question, if in fact it was moved in the area where Caylee was found.
KARAS: The biggest hurdle for the defense, Jane, are all the statements that Casey has made, and she was all along blaming Zanny the nanny, even if they do back off that now, they are stuck with her statements. And the prosecution is likely to use a lot of her statements to show that she was confusing and obstructing and doing anything but helping the investigation.
EIGLARSH: And I`m not convinced they`re going to back off of it.
(CROSSTALK)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: They`re going to put so many people on the stand that say, oh, I was dating her and she never mentioned Zanny the nanny. I never saw Zanny the nanny. The phone numbers she gave for Zanny the nanny aren`t the correct numbers. The place where she said she left her daughter with Zanny the nanny was an unoccupied apartment that never had anybody named Zanny living there. I mean how do you overcome that?
EIGLARSH: The mother. The mother has given statements in deposition describing in detail what she believed Zanny looked like physically as described by Casey. She and George I think will serve as probably the most compelling witnesses; she`ll try to prove to the jurors that this Zanny does exist.
And -- and you don`t necessarily have to -- the defense doesn`t have to prove anything. Just throw it out there and then point the finger at law enforcement. Why didn`t you search more?
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now, they`re also going to use "ugly coping" we understand where they try to explain Casey`s partying for the month that her daughter first went missing, going out dancing as an "ugly coping" method.
And we are going to discuss that the next time we discuss Casey, which is probably going to be very, very soon.
Thank you, fantastic panel, very much.
